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House Fundraising Reports: Winners, Losers and Surprises

Updated: 5:45 p.m.

Now that House candidates’ second-quarter fundraising reports have been filed, Roll Call presents a few winners, losers and other fundraising items of note.

• Democratic incumbents in battleground Ohio districts took a financial beating in the second quarter. State Sen. Steve Stivers (R) more than doubled the fundraising of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D) in the 15th district. Stivers raised $588,000 to Kilroy’s $262,000. Stivers now has $1.2 million in cash on hand to $934,000 for Kilroy.

In the equally competitive 1st district, former Rep. Steve Chabot (R) also had more cash on hand than the incumbent, Rep. Steve Driehaus (D). After raising $314,000 for the quarter, Chabot had just over $1 million in the bank on June 30. Driehaus raised $239,000 for the quarter and had $973,000 on hand.

And in the hotly contested 16th district, former Wadsworth Mayor Jim Renacci (R) showed over half a million dollars more in receipts than Rep. John Boccieri (D). With the help of nearly $200,000 in personal loans, Renacci reported $832,000 in receipts for the quarter to Boccieri’s $282,000. But Boccieri still had a $400,000 cash-on-hand lead as of June 30.

• Freshman Rep. Mark Schauer (D-Mich.) is stockpiling cash for the fall while his top potential GOP competitors both spent more than they raised during the second quarter. Schauer pulled in $406,000 for the quarter and now has about $1.7 million in the bank. Republican Tim Walberg, a former Congressman, raised $161,000 and spent $166,000. His Republican primary opponent, Brian Rooney, raised $156,000 and spent $180,000. Rooney had $419,000 in the bank on June 30 to Walberg’s $364,000. The primary will take place in early August.

• Rep. Ben Chandler (D-Ky.) didn’t help dampen down talk of his vulnerability this cycle by raising just $178,000 for the quarter. GOP nominee Andy Barr pulled in an impressive $400,000 for the quarter. But Barr, who has been in the race since last fall, had to spend money to get through a competitive primary in May and ended the quarter with just $361,000 on hand. Chandler had well over $1.7 million in the bank.

• State House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith (R) earned kudos for outraising Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) by $13,000 during the quarter. Griffith pulled in $298,000 to Boucher’s $285,000. But Republican excitement over that achievement is tempered by the fact that Boucher had more than $2 million on hand. Griffith had less than $300,000 in the bank.

• One of the best showings of the quarter came in Delaware’s open at-large district, where businesswoman and former Miss USA Michele Rollins (R) collected $595,000 and banked $474,000. She still trails the presumed Democratic nominee, former Lt. Gov. John Carney, in cash on hand; he had $872,000 in the bank after raising $408,000. Another wealthy Republican, developer Glen Urquhart, raised $121,000 and finished June with $435,000 in the bank.

• Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.), never one of her party’s strongest fundraisers, took in $210,000 for the quarter and was outraised again by the leading Republican, former Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta, whose $275,000 in receipts included a $125,000 personal loan.

• Speaking of notoriously bad fundraisers, freshman Rep. Larry Kissell (D-N.C.) raised a dismal $104,000 for the quarter. And while that’s better than the $72,000 he raised in the first quarter, it won’t do anything to make his battleground district look any less of target in a Republican-friendly year. Kissell had less than $300,000 in the bank at the end of June. Former sports broadcaster Harold Johnson showed $171,000 in receipts for the period (including a $50,000 personal loan) and had $82,000 on hand at the end of a quarter that saw him fight his way through a primary runoff that didn’t take place until late June.

• In Florida’s 25th district, which is one of the few seats where Democrats are playing offense this cycle, Democrat Joe Garcia turned in a whopping $728,000 raised in his first FEC report since announcing earlier this year. That was enough to lead Republican David Rivera, whose $525,000 was nothing to sneeze at, by more than $200,000. Rivera began July with $1.1 million in the bank to Garcia’s $623,000.

• Another Democratic target is Washington’s 8th district, where former Microsoft executive Suzan DelBene (D) reported slightly more in the bank than Rep. Dave Reichert (R), $1 million to $988,000.

• Tennessee’s 8th district GOP primary is turning into a fundraising circus. Shelby County Commissioner George Flinn Jr. loaned himself $1.9 million and spent just as much, mostly on huge media buys. He ended the quarter with just $183,000 in cash on hand, although that doesn’t seem to matter considering how deep his pockets are. Establishment favorite Steve Fincher ended the quarter with less than half the cash on hand he started with on April 1. He raised $214,000, spent $636,000 and had $407,000 in the bank on June 30. And physician Ron Kirkland saw a huge drop in his fundraising. He followed an $850,000 first quarter with $147,000 raised in the second quarter. Kirkland had just under half a million dollars on hand. State Sen. Roy Herron, the assumed Democratic nominee, continued to stockpile cash for the general election. He raised $369,000 and had $1.2 million on hand on June 30.

• Despite Flinn’s best efforts, top self-funding honors for the second quarter went to auto dealer Tom Ganley (R) in Ohio’s 13th district. Ganley cut his campaign a $2.5 million check at the end of June and brought his total self-funding for the cycle to more than $6.5 million. Ganley is trying to knock off Rep. Betty Sutton (D), who had $593,000 on hand at the end of June, more than double what she reported in the bank at the end of April.

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